Archive for the Turducken Category

I’ve spent all weekend devouring turducken sandwiches, and let me tell you, the birds get even better the third, fourth and fifth times around. It’s better than a standard leftover turkey sandwich, because the turducken has so many different flavors and different textures. Plus, it seems to have gotten spicier, which I can’t argue with. It’s been four days and I still have plenty left (even after ten people attacked the roast the night I made it), so I’m definitely getting my money’s worth.

The amazing folks at cajungrocer.com were kind enough to ship me one of their massive turduckens to test for the blog. Don’t know what a turducken is? Well, if you want to be on the front lines of the meat frontier, you should. It’s a dish consisting of a partially de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken, with layers of stuffing in-between. In this case, the total creature weighed 15 lbs, with 11.5 lbs being meat.

The birds come de-boned and pre-stuffed, wrapped up nicely in a cryovac package with the legs tied. They need to cook for about 5 hours at 325; it’s a pretty easy process, considering the amount of different animals you’re cooking at once.

The only cooking fiasco can be blamed entirely on me and my stupid failure to buy a roasting pan. Instead, I constructed one using a cookie sheet and a lot of aluminum foil. It held pretty well, until I removed the birds to cover them for their last hour of cooking. Some of the foil got caught on the rack, producing a hole through which a bit of grease leaked. After some dramatic sizzling, huge amounts of smoke came gushing out and I started to ponder whether I knew how to turn the fire alarm off for the building (I do). The crisis was averted through some quick cleaning, and the turducken came out with a nice brown crispy skin.

When the bird was carved, we were at first all puzzled as to which part was which; but once we got it on our plate, chunks of duck, chicken and both types of stuffing magically appeared. You can see it best in the picture below.Continue reading →